Miniature Recipes

Tortillas are the foundation upon which many delicious Mexican dishes are made. They are readily available at any supermarket, and I bet many home cooks never consider making them from scratch when preparing burritos, enchiladas and the like. That's unfortunate, since the ingredients and process of making tortillas are both incredibly simple.

If you are fortunate enough to have a specialty Mexican market nearby as we do, you can purchase the masa dough freshly made and ready to press or roll out. But this time I wanted to make a healthier version using whole wheat flour. The texture of the tortilla looks very similar to paratha, or Indian flat bread, but the rolling part is much easier, especially if you have a tortilla dough press. The tortilla comes out perfectly each time in a nice round disk.

Lulu planted jujube trees 3 years ago and they didn't produce much fruit until this year. A jujube (also called Chinese date) is a little date-sized fruit that has a sweet smell and a flavor reminiscent of apples. In Asia, legend says that the scent of jujubes makes people fall in love. They are also a sign of fertility.

The fruits are so much more flavorful and sweet than the ones from our local market. In Vietnam, jujubes are eaten fresh as a snack. The girls have been going back and forth to the garden to pick the fruits from the trees. The crop is so huge this year; each branch holds at least 2 dozen jujubes. We've been asking friends and family to take some home, but we still had more, so I decided to try and make a dessert with some jujubes.

The texture of the fresh fruit is very similar to apples, so I adapted my tarte amandine and made it with walnuts and jujube instead. For a nice glossy look, I drizzled date syrup over the jujube tarts. It was the first time I tested the recipe and it worked wonderfully.

We harvested our last batch of Black Mission figs from the garden today. I've been wanting to share them with our friends, and so I made two dozen mini-tarts this afternoon.

I adapted the almond cream that I use in my tarte amandine recipe, but instead of almond I used pecans because I think pecans complement figs really well. To sweeten the figs and pecans, I drizzle warm maple syrup. The result is a true taste of autumn.

There are guests coming tomorrow, and as usual I had no clue about what to make. I scoured my pantry and found a bag of macadamia nuts, just waiting to be used. I made walnut pesto yesterday, and I didn't feel like making another pasta and pesto dish. As they say, variety is the spice of life.

I think appetizers are perfect for dinner parties; they allow people to nibble without interrupting the flow of conversation. I often make some sort of mini puff pastry, and I thought a macadamia pesto would be the perfect filling. However, a traditional pesto would be too thin on its own, so I added some homemade crème fraîche and some goat ricotta cheese. As you may have noticed, I'm a huge fan of goat ricotta cheese, and I get it whenever it's available at the local creamery.

Today, I made the pesto and the dough, tested out and baked a couple of puffs in the oven for tasting. The smell was intoxicating, and it was really difficult to snap a couple of photos before everyone descended upon them.

You can freeze both the pesto and the dough. If you often have last minute guests as we do, it's easy to pop them out of the freezer and bake them. Your guests will love them, and you'll be a rockstar without much effort!

A local bakery makes these wonderful kiwi tarts that everyone in the family loves. I just bought some really nice golden kiwis from the local market and I thought I'd try my hand at making a kiwi tart, but with my own twist.

I used a walnut dough with the standard crème pâtissière. Instead of coating the bottom of the pastry with chocolate, I drizzled it over the top. The chocolate and kiwi go well together and they mesh very well with the velvety cream and the texture of the walnut tart shell.